No Easy Street

Founded by Olympian Brendan Foster in 1981, the Great North Run has been the catalyst for a brand that’s spread chronologically to Edinburgh (as the Great Caledonian Run), Portsmouth, Ethiopia, Manchester, Dublin, Sheffield, London and for the first time this year, to Tanzania and Zambia.

“The new fitness culture is a global thing. Local authorities nationally and internationally give us every support, and there’s no reason why we can’t go on taking the message to new destinations,” operations director at Nova International, Nigel Gough, told Access All Areas magazine.

The landmarks are everywhere on the Great Edinburgh Run. The start is just off the Royal Mile, runners go past the castle, the Mound and up towards Fyfe. It ticks all the tourist boxes. It’s hilly, it’s a trial for the runners, and it’s a bigger draw every year for competitors and spectators. No surprise then that television came a knocking. Through three helicopters, five fixed-point cameras and a team of motorbikes, Five captured an hour and a half of the event as it happened.

“The Bupa Great Edinburgh Run is a fantastic occasion for everyone involved,” Deidre Brock, culture and sport leader for the city council said. “The new route took runners past some of the city’s most iconic and historic landmarks, and made for a spectacular backdrop to the race. Events like this help us greatly towards our target of making Edinburgh the most physically active city in Europe by 2020.”

Left leg in

Suspended in a scissor lift, albeit none too high in strong winds, singer turned fitness guru Roy Gayle led the masses in a musical exercise at 10:15am ahead of the trials of the road. “We make quite a thing about the warm up on the Great Runs,” race director Andy Mitchelmore explained. “Roy makes it fun, but it’s useful for the runners, it helps to get them ready and avoid silly injuries.”

Nova coded the start, from orange for the experts via white and green to pink. The single start/finish gate meant the colours ran a little, but the elite got away comfortably, Kenyan Micah Kogo winning the men’s race after a fierce duel with 2008 champion, fellow countryman Bernard Kipyego.

“That was a really tough course, the terrain was more like cross-country than a road run,” American Deena Kaston, who took the women’s title in 32 minutes 38 seconds, ahead of three time champion Jelena Prokopcuka, said. “Fortunately it is what I’m used to back home and I always run strongly on hills.”

Battle of the bulge

The changes to the race map actually brought just 200 new metres to the mix, and council marketing aside, it’s always taken in the local scenery. But getting the bridge clear for the elite finish, and Kogo was back in 28 minutes, put a pressure on the (mostly) pinks, slowing their progress to a walk for much of the first phase.

“I arrived in plenty of time and squeezed my way up the pavement to get into position prior to the start,” one participant from Edinburgh Running Network noted. “It was all a bit fraught. I ended up right at the back of a pen, which proved less than ideal. Over the gantry, 30 seconds running, then everyone in front of me stopped. Another wee run then another stop and so it went on to the far end of Princes Street Gardens. The first kilometre took me nearly eight minutes.”

Mitchelmore accepted that there was bunching towards the back of the field as organisers tried to get everybody on track, but stressed it was nothing to do with the wants of Five.

“It was great the event was broadcast, but we made no allowances for television,” he told this magazine firmly. “Our priority is always the runners’ safety and wellbeing. There was a bit of slow traffic on the course, but it was a catch 22. Clearing the start of the masses for the elite to finish. We managed it with 10 or 11 minutes to spare, but I would have preferred it not to be so busy.

“When the starts are separate you can take as long as you like. As it was though, it was a balancing act, and we got a few too many folk on the course at one time. I’m sorry that happened. It’s a lesson learned.”

Time out

With no road closures until 4:00am on the day of the race, and the start point open from 8:30am, the new lookslashed the build time.

“We looked at other parks when the Meadow was ruled out of the equation,” Mitchelmore said. “But as much as possible we wanted to keep the 10k route, and by taking it into town we could pretty much start at last year’s 2km point and join up the loop. The more we pre-fabricate off site, the more it makes life easier, so we cleared a couple of side streets to build the medical points. Working with suppliers we’re familiar with was the key to making it all happen.”

One such, Edinburgh-based Tower Event Solutions, managed the power, the starters’ and commentators’ podiums, the presentation stage for TV personnel/presenters and the Warehouse Sound Services PA on the bridge.

“We assembled and tested three flatbed PA trucks at our warehouse on the Saturday, then drove to the site and parked in pre-established positions, 90m apart, the lead vehicle just ahead of the start,” project manager for the company, and Andy’s brother, James Mitchelmore, explained.

Tower’s other commitments included rigging a 100V horn system from lampposts with a cherrypicker fed with a variety of wired and radio links and deploying cable via ramps and mats through “some interesting runs over various rooftops”.

“We do a lot of events in public spaces so we know the form,” he told Access. “The layout was decided well in advance, so it was clear what needed to happen. It was tough, but we were confident we would achieve everything we had to do.”

James Mitchelmore

In the eye of a bruising recession, the Great Run phenomenon is an inexpensive and hugely valuable thing to get involved with, both for personal gain and for charity. Edinburgh raised more than £1.2m for good causes in 2009.

“It wasn’t easy. Apart from the hills it was very, very windy, but I hope to return next year,” Kogo said, inadvertently, I suspect, speaking for all.